Democracy on Deadline: The Global Struggle for an Independent Press

Calvin Skaggs is president of the company he founded, Lumiere Productions. With more than two dozen films and television productions to his credit, Skaggs has spent 25 years creating both dramatic and documentary films. He made his producing debut on public television in 1975 with the award-winning series The American Short Story, then went on to create productions for American Playhouse, including the feature Go Tell It on the Mountain, and for other PBS series such as American Masters and WonderWorks. Skaggs executive produced and directed the documentary series With God On Our Side: The Rise Of The Religious Right In America, 1950-1994 as well as the verité series Local News. Skaggs’s work has also included The Circus (HBO), Vanished: Inside the Witness Protection Program and Diamonds! for Discovery. Among his acclaimed theatrical features are Horton Foote’s On Valentine’s Day, Fly By Night (Best Dramatic Film at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival), and The Wash.

Jed Rothstein was nominated for an Academy Award for his 2010 film, Killing in the Name. His earlier work includes producing the award-winning documentary Shouting Fire: Stories from the Edge of Free Speech, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2009, and the television documentaries Coma, and Democracy on Deadline, as well as directing God's Next Army. He won a Cine Golden Eagle for his work as co-producer of Pandemic: Facing AIDS, and an Emmy for his work on Kids Behind Bars in 2002.